Les Spellman on Reverse Engineering Acceleration and Speed Development

If your goal is to help your athletes get FASTER, then this is the show for you. One of America’s elite speed and performance coaches, Les Spellman has trained several Olympians as well as athletes in the NFL, NCAA, and USA rugby. Most notably, however, he has guided a large percentage of his youth athletes to college scholarships. And in this episode, we’re really going to dive into the models and systems that Les uses to evaluate, train and coach his athletes and help them get as fast as humanly possible.   Keep it in the context of what they want to get better at, and then we provide the context of the physical traits it takes to get there. – Les Spellman   This Week on the Physical Prep Podcast: Les’ background and how a serious accident kick-started his training career. His acceleration model, and a breakdown of how he coaches acceleration. How he coaches acceleration differently across sports, as well as how things change when you step on a track. The multiple phases of acceleration, and 3 elements he wants to see every athlete demonstrate when running. The biggest mistakes Les’ sees when people are accelerating, and how to address them. How to use force-velocity profiling to give your athletes exactly what they need in their programming. The Universal Speed Rating: What it is and why Les’ created it. Why after coaching professional athletes across numerous sports, he still loves training kids. A really fun lightning round where we talk about the fastest 10 he’s ever seen, how to use force plates to help taper/peak Combine athletes, and how you can intern for Les’ if you’re interested!   Connect with Les: Les on Twitter Les on Instagram Les’ Website Universal Speed Rating   Supercharge Your Decision-Making and Program Design with Hawkin Dynamics Force Plates! Force plates are in no way, shape or form new technology, but Hawkin Dynamics has brought them to the 21st century. Hawkin Dynamics plates are wireless which makes them portable and easy to set-up and use. You’ll have the ability to performance test your athletes in a matter of seconds, and give them immediate feedback on their strengths and weaknesses.